As you can see from the pictures, preschool is off to a great start with many new friends being made.  This week, our Bible story is "Perfume for Jesus" and continue with our senses of "A Nose that Smells."  Various smells, such as lemon, cinnamon, coffee, and perfume will be smelled with pictures of what the smell is.  During our opening time, we will paint a cut-out strawberry with strawberry Jello paste that will continue to smell like a strawberry after it has dried.  Snack time will be Goldfish and raisins.  Our songs this week include "My God is so Big."  The kids enjoy this song as we stretch out our arms very wide to show how big He is.  Other songs will be "I'm in the Lord's Army," "Into my Heart," "Itsy, Bitsy Spider," and a new song about falling leaves.  Our art activity will be painting with red, yellow, and orange using cotton balls attached to clothes pins to create Fall leaves on a bare tree.  Our storytime will include "The Very Quiet Cricket," an Eric Carle story about a cricket meeting various insects and trying to find his chirp.  Also, we will sing a story with several fun verses called "I'm a Little Teapot."  At the end of our day, we have four colored bags (red, yellow, orange, and brown) and paper leaves.  I will sing

ALL THE LEAVES

All the leaves are falling down.

Red and yellow, orange and brown.

They are falling off the trees.  Watch them

blowing in the breeze. 

All the leaves are falling down.  Red and yellow,

orange and brown.

and let the leaves flutter down on the kids.  They will collect as many as they can and match the leaf color to the same colored bag.

 Have a blessed week,
Mrs. Shelly

September 20, 2011

Our room is getting off to an exciting start with all our new friends and activities we are doing together.  This week, our emphasis continues with our senses with "Ears that Hear."  The Bible story is "The Parable of the Sower" talking about hearing God's word and our hearts being good soil for His word to grow.  Our songs this week include "Oh, be Careful Little Eyes & Ears," "I've Got the Joy," "Praise Him All You Little Children," and "ABC Song."  We will also have a felt board song of "Old McDonald" with all the felt farm animals to learn their sounds.  Last week, we showed the star inside the apple core and made an apple print on a paper plate.  Over the weekend, I turned these into rice shakers to use this year for music time.  This week, we will decorate a leaf collage with glue and little paper shapes on the opposite side of the shaker.  For snack time, I used a box of cinnamon Cherrios one of our families brought to Open House and made Cherrios marshmallow treats for this week.  During our opening time at the Blue table, we will use a variety of toy vehicles with different types of wheels and roll the wheels on ink pads and then on our paper.  Storytime this week will be "Bunny's Noisy Book," a Margaret Wide Brown book about all the sounds the Bunny hears as he goes through his daily adventures.  "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?" is our second story which shows large, vibrant pictures of zoo animals and the sounds they make.  The surprise box this week will be filled with noisy items, such as a train whistle, a bell, harmonica, and other items to listen to.

Have a blessed week!
Mrs. Shelly

We had a really awesome first week and a lot of fun meeting our new friends.  Thank you so much for all the supplies that we received.  This week, our Bible story emphasis will be "Jesus Heals the Blind Man," and we will begin our theme for the next 6 weeks with each week focusing on one of our senses; this week is "Eyes that See."  We will sing "Oh Be Careful Little Eyes What You See," "This Little Light of Mine," "Two Little Eyes," (a fingerplay with pictures) and "Way Up High in the Apple Tree."  We have an apple tree felt activity with red, yellow, and green apples.  As the children place these on the tree, we will talk about the color; and when they remove each apple, we will count them up to 10.  For art time, we will make apple prints.  I will slice the apple in half horizontally in order to find the star in the center to make prints on a paper apple shape and on a paper plate that we will make into a shaker for music time.  During our opening time at the blue table, we have red, yellow, and green paper apples to make a collage with little paper squares.  Storytime will be a favorite book of many children called "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" and also "Great Big Animal Book" showing farm animal families and what the baby animals are called.  We will also fill up our "Surprise Box" with many items to reach in and identify, such as a candle, rock, pinecone, lock, comb, etc.

We are looking forward to another great week!  

Mrs. Shelly

TWO LITTLE EYES

Two little eyes to see the bright sun

to see the little raindrops falling one by one.

Two little eyes to see the green tree,

to see the flying bird, and the buzzing bee.

TWO GREEN APPLES

Way up high in an apple tree,

Two green apples(substitute red and yellow)

Smiled at me.

So I shook that tree as hard as I could,

And down fell the apples,

Mmmm, they were good!

It was so nice to meet all our new families at the Open Houses. We are excited to start a brand new year with your children.
Our theme this week is "The 10 Commandments--God's Rules for Me," where we will focus on the Bible story of Moses receiving the 10 Commandments and that rules are not mean, but keep us safe. We will introduce our welcome bear, "Barry" to the children as he welcomes each of them by name with our song. We will sing "The Bible, We Love the Bible" before we learn our Bible story, and "Jesus Loves Me," If You're Happy and You Know It," and "Twinkle Star." For art/craft time, we have 3 sponge hearts we will stamp with red paint and talk about small, medium, and large. Our snack will be animal crackers, with a special birthday treat on Thursday to celebrate Gabriel's 2nd birthday.
During our opening time, we will have crayons, stickers, and paper available at our Blue table for art expression. We will then turn on some music to move to with our streamers. We also have bubbles during this time, which the children always enjoy.
We are so thankful for the cooler weather for our first week as we will plan to play on our playground and learn to walk to our playground in a line holding our rope.
After lunchtime each day, we enjoy storytime. This week, our story/song includes "The Wheels on the Bus." and "Who's Hiding?" a lift-the-flap book showing Bible Friends and how God loves and cares for us.
We are looking forward to a great first week. We will also try to take a nice picture of each of the children to attach to our apple tree on our bulletin board.
Have a blessed week!
Mrs. Shelly